file_get_contents not working with externel sites - php

Question

I've been using this over 2 months and worked fine until some days ago, when an error message appeared.
I use the steam api to get some info of the players.
$url = "http://steamcommunity.com/id/CGaKeepoN/?xml=1";
The page is not blank, it has an xml document. So my first thinking was that my host had turned allow_url_fopen off, but they don't (I asked them).
I also tried using error_reporting(E_ALL); ini_set('display_errors', 1);
And that's what I get:
Warning: simplexml_load_file() [function.simplexml-load-file]: I/O warning : failed to load external entity "" on line 6
Notice: Trying to get property of non-object on line 7
Now I'm using this: $xml = simplexml_load_file(file_get_contents($url));
And I would love to continue using it because installing cURL it's not an option right now. Do you know of a better (or a working) way to get this done? Or how to fix this error?
My full code:
error_reporting(E_ALL);
ini_set('display_errors', 1);
//$url = "http://steamcommunity.com/id/CGaKeepoN/?xml=1";
$url = "xml.txt";
ini_set('allow_url_fopen ','ON');
$xml = file_get_contents($url) or die ("file_get_contents failed");
$xml = simplexml_load_string($xml) or die ("simplexml_load_string failed");
$profilepic = $xml->avatarIcon;
$pic = $xml->avatarFull;
$steamID = $xml->steamID;
$lastonline = $xml->stateMessage;
echo $xml;
echo $profilepic;
echo $pic;
echo $steamID;
echo $lastonline;
EDIT:
If I use the internal url it loads the data, but when I try to use any url that uses http protocol just launches the file_get_contents failed error, even if the url is my website's one. I'm willing to use cURL if there's no other solution. I also thought about making a php script that loads the data and saves it in a file in the server (and then run a cronjob every 10 min), but it would use the file_get_contents anyway...

Answer 1

file_get_content returns a string so use simplexml_load_string instead.
This code works for me, tested.
$url = "http://steamcommunity.com/id/CGaKeepoN/?xml=1";
$xml = simplexml_load_string(file_get_contents($url));
$profilepic = $xml->avatarIcon;
$pic = $xml->avatarFull;
$steamID = $xml->steamID;
$lastonline = $xml->stateMessage;
var_dump($url);
var_dump($xml); //-> string(45) "http://steamcommunity.com/id/CGaKeepoN/?xml=1" bool(false)
echo $xml;
echo $profilepic;
echo $pic;
echo $steamID;
echo $lastonline;